


Perhaps A Sign

by Thia (Jennaria)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Spoilers up to Episode 58, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 03:59:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennaria/pseuds/Thia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos keeps waking up in Cecil's bed.  This would be great, if he knew how he got back there from the Desert Otherworld, or if the timeline wasn't screwed up.  Maybe he should work on that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perhaps A Sign

When Carlos wakes up, he's in Cecil's bed.

He rolls over onto his back, blinking up sleepily at the familiar ceiling. Is this a dream? He fell asleep in the Desert Otherworld, outside on the sand: he remembers wrapping his lab coat closer around him, and feeling for his phone like a talisman. Now he's somehow stripped down to t-shirt and jeans, with his lab coat hung over the corner of the bed. His skin still feels gritty from the sand. 

Carlos props himself up on his elbows so he can look around better. Any coherent plans about where to look, and what to look _for_ , get derailed immediately. Cecil's standing in the doorway, leaning against the door frame and watching him.

"Not that I don't appreciate you in my bed, but I feel like this is sending a mixed message." 

Carlos smiles at Cecil, and opens his mouth to answer. Then his mind belatedly replays what Cecil just said, and instead Carlos says, "I'm sorry, but would you mind repeating that?"

"I feel that you, in my bed, is sending a mixed message," Cecil says, which is not precisely a repetition of his exact words, but conveys the same sense as the words Carlos remembers. He's staring at Carlos with bewildered eyes that keep sliding down to the strip of bare skin between t-shirt and jeans, or the bulge of Carlos's half-hard cock against the jeans (which is reflex and really not Carlos's fault when he's in his boyfriend's bed which smells of his boyfriend).

Carlos pushes himself up so he's at least sitting up, instead of lounging on Cecil's bed, no matter how much he'd like to stay there. "I don't think it's mixed at all. I admit I didn't expect to appear here - there's been no sign of any oak doors, and yes --"

"I'm sorry, Carlos, I don't mean to interrupt, but why are you looking for oak doors?"

Carlos feels something twist inside him. Whatever he thinks of Night Vale - which is a complicated subject - he's always been sure that nothing in Night Vale, _of_ Night Vale, could or would hurt Cecil. But if Cecil doesn't remember the Oak Doors, then either Cecil's been somehow replaced with a double, or his mind's been wiped, or - wait, no, this _is_ Night Vale, where time doesn't work. He should start with a simpler, easily verified hypothesis first. "Um. Cecil, what's the date?"

"February 2nd, 2013," Cecil says. "And I just returned from having coffee. With you. At which you stated that, despite a _perfectly understandable_ confusion, it was not in fact a date."

"It wasn't," Carlos says. He feels a momentary pang of guilt. Not Night Vale's fault after all. It's about time. The timelines between Night Vale and the Desert Otherworld got tangled somehow - much worse than he'd previously thought possible. He'd known they didn't always align properly, but --

"Carlos, what are you talking about?"

"...I'm thinking aloud?" He's tried, very hard, to break the habit (despite the occasional thank-you notes from the Sheriff's Secret Police). Apparently he needs to work at it some more. Again.

"Yes, you did," Cecil says, but the little twist of confusion is gone from his forehead. He comes in and sits down on the bed next to Carlos. "You're from an alternate timeline?"

"Dammit, Cecil, I can't confirm or deny that without possibly destroying the universe, depending on how time travel actually works, which I haven't properly investigated. I'm not even sure whether time travel is _legal_ on this date."

"It is," Cecil says. He reaches up and slowly, carefully - as if he expects Carlos to flinch away at any second - brushes his hand over Carlos's hair.

Carlos catches himself leaning forward. Cecil plays with his hair all the time: it's a favorite joke between them. Cecil plays with Carlos's hair, and Carlos 'distracts' him with a kiss. Cecil always points out that Carlos isn't exactly persuading him _not_ to play with his hair. But this isn't his Cecil, not exactly. This is Cecil who's still working to think of Carlos as a friend first. For Carlos to kiss him really could destroy the timeline, and possibly their relationship as well.

"I'm sorry," Carlos says instead, and sits back up. He closes his eyes, and looks slightly to the left, and feels the world dissolve around him in prickling tingles, like his whole body going to sleep.

*

Carlos opened his eyes again in the desert.

He sat up sharply and looked around. He couldn't see the constellations from last night, faded in the morning light of whatever sort of sun existed here now that the other sort of light had gone. The lighthouse up on the mountain blinked steadily at him. He entertained the momentary hypothesis that he'd finally mastered the trick Dana tried to teach him, of projecting himself into Night Vale. But he'd done that before, without...well, Dana was never solid, was she? And he hadn't been either. His hand had passed right through Cecil's when they tried to touch. Last night, though - Carlos remembered the shivering touch of Cecil's fingers against his hair.

Carlos rummaged his phone out of his lab coat pocket, and dialed Cecil's number.

Cecil answered immediately. "Carlos? Are you all right? Did something happen?"

"I have something I urgently had to tell you. I think - " Carlos hesitated for a second, as he realized that maybe he shouldn't just blurt out _I might have a way back to Night Vale that doesn't involve the oak doors_ , not until he knew for _sure_. "I think I might have found an alternate way to project myself into Night Vale," he said instead. "I'm there, solid, but it's not at the time and place I would have chosen."

He honestly expected Cecil to ask _What time and place would you have chosen?_ which of course would turn this into phone-sex. Instead, Cecil hummed thoughtfully, and said, "Where were you? _When_ were you?"

"February 2nd, 2013. And your bed."

Cecil hummed again. Carlos took the phone away from his ear and frowned down at it. No, still connected. Just...no reaction from Cecil for some reason. "Cecil? Are you - Wait, are you _remembering_ something?"

"How would I know?" Cecil retorted quickly - too quickly. "Time travel was illegal for several years, remember - if I encountered anyone I knew to be a time traveller, the Secret Police or the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency would have wiped it from my memory. At most I'd have a vague fuzziness, that might be becoming clearer as you tell me what happened. In detail. With pictures, if possible."

"There's no details to _tell_! You stroked my hair, Cecil. We didn't even kiss." No matter how much he'd wanted to. "Besides, how would I _get_ pictures?"

"Ask the Secret Police for them, of course."

"Of course. Silly of me."

"And really, you _could_ have kissed me."

Carlos stared up at the unfamiliar sky that no longer showed the unfamiliar constellations. The blinking red light continued to blink, red and then gone, seen only out of the corner of his eye. "Cecil...it wasn't _you_."

"It was. It _is_. Everything in my past, whether I remember it or not - including anything that might theoretically involve a time-traveling scientist paying me a very private visit - led to the me that is today. The timeline is secure."

"And...and everything else?"

Cecil paused. For a horrible moment, Carlos thought Cecil didn't know what he was talking about. Just because he'd learned to get along in the Desert Otherworld - just because Doug and Alesha and the rest of the masked warriors had become sorta friends, and so much science to learn here, so much! - just because all of that was true didn't mean that Carlos didn't still miss Rochelle or Dave or Dana or even Steve Carlsberg. He missed Night Vale, although he refused to admit it. He missed _Cecil_.

"I'm not going anywhere," Cecil said at last, his voice gentle and even. "Not even if you kiss me in the past. … _especially_ not if you kiss me in the past. In fact, I give you permission to kiss me whenever you'd like."

"I'd rather kiss you now," Carlos said.

"Mmm. Tell me more."

*

When Carlos opens his eyes and sees Cecil's ceiling again, he sits up immediately. There's no lag this time, where he thinks it's a dream. He understands.

(He talked with Alesha about it, after the first time. They suggested it might be because of a particular stellar configuration, and brought him over to another masked warrior, someone they've been working with for a while now. The other masked warrior, whose name Carlos didn't manage to learn, sketches out a map of all the constellations that shone in the sky the night Carlos paid his impromptu visit to Night Vale. Three of those same constellations were above him last night when he went to sleep.)

Carlos swings his legs down off the bed, already opening his mouth to call for Cecil. Nothing comes out, because the bedroom door swings open, and there's Cecil.

Cecil stares at him, hand still out from where he pushed the door open. "Carlos," he whispers, hardly more than a breath. Then his eyes narrow. "No, wait. Not Carlos. Not with that hair." He draws breath again, probably to summon the Secret Police.

"Wait!" Carlos said, standing up - whoops, too quick, everything goes wobbly for a second. A familiar hand catches his arm and steadies him, and he smiles up at Cecil before he remembers. 

Cecil, thankfully, blinks down at him with that same dumbfounded expression that he always seemed to get, that first year, whenever Carlos forgot himself and smiled at him, as if he can't quite believe this is happening. Carlos takes advantage and says, "Cecil, what's the date?"

"The date?" Cecil repeats, then blinks and shakes himself. "The date. It's August 4, 2012. And _you_ are --"

"Not in my right time," Carlos interrupts. 

For just a second, Cecil's eyes widen again, and his shoulders sag - relief, maybe? Then he glances nervously over his shoulder and says, "And time travel is _illegal_. You shouldn't be here!"

"I'll go soon," Carlos promises, though he isn't actually sure he can do that - he only has one complete data point, after all, and you can't form a proper hypothesis off of one and a half data points. "I just - I wanted to see you."

Cecil looks blank. "You did?"

 _After everything that happened…_ Carlos didn't mean to echo words he hasn't, technically, said yet. He wonders what Cecil will think when he realizes it. He wonders if Cecil will realize it at all: given he's a confessed illegal time traveller, Cecil might be forced to forget. For a brief, intense second, Carlos wishes again that he could bring Cecil over to the Desert Otherworld with him, just to _show_ him - but that's not an option, and something else is. "I did," Carlos says out loud. "I'm not here to tell you information you shouldn't have. I came to see you." Before he loses his courage, he takes the last few steps to close the distance between himself and Cecil, and kisses him.

It's a quick, light kiss - partially because Carlos isn't that brave, and partially because Cecil's frozen in place like he's run astray of some Night Valian law or something. When Carlos steps back, though, Cecil raises his fingers to his mouth. "Carlos," he murmurs. Carlos barely resists the urge to step right back forward and kiss him again.

Fortunately or not, he's not given the chance to change his mind. He doesn't turn his head this time, but still Cecil's bedroom shimmers and vanishes around him again in a prickling flash of red, and he's back in the Desert Otherworld again, with the sun on the horizon, blotting out the constellations once more.

*

"I'm not sure I understand," Cecil said slowly.

"It's complicated," Carlos admitted. He took a deep breath, and tried again, more slowly. "It's not about oak doors, or apparently about any doors at all, which violates all the laws of physics but so does Night Vale most of the time, which is why it doesn't align to the normal passage of time or clocks or anything --"

"Carlos. You appeared in my bedroom. Twice."

"So far," Carlos said. "And I don't have a proper scientific explanation for it, except insofar as I sort of have an explanation for it, and I'm a scientist, so perhaps that makes it scientific after all? It's the constellations," he added hastily, when he heard Cecil draw breath to say something again. "Somehow, the combination of certain constellations in the night sky thins the passage between this desert otherworld and Night Vale. There isn't a coherent structure that allows people (or other beings) to go through, like the oak doors, at least not at the current time."

"Time isn't real --"

"Which is why I haven't been appearing in your bedroom in sequential order. So to speak. Although Alesha thinks there might be a connection to the _exact_ position of the constellations in the sky: we don't have enough data to be sure. Thus far I've avoided appearing there at a time when I might have been there in normal time, but that means that either I'm going to go farther back in the timeline, or I suppose I might have already arrived --"

"You haven't," Cecil assured him. "I don't know. To have you here again, knowing that you'd be leaving as soon as the sun came up there, knowing it was only a brief visit...I do want to see you again, but not like that."

"We're investigating," Carlos said firmly. "Alesha's very smart. We'll figure something out."

"We have science on our side," Cecil agreed. Carlos could hear the smile in his voice.

*

Cecil's bedroom, again, but different somehow. Carlos lies still and studies it as well as he can without moving, because for the first time he can hear slow steady breathing next to him, and he doesn't want to wake up Cecil. Not until he knows _when_ this is. 

He turns his head slowly. The first clear clue he sees is an old poster of Lee Marvin, signed and framed behind glass. Carlos saw that once, with the glass shattered and the poster torn, carefully placed in storage in Cecil's apartment building. It fell off the wall during a scheduled earthquake, Cecil explained mournfully, and the conversation tangented off from there - about earthquakes, about Westerns, Carlos doesn't really remember now. All he remembers is that Cecil said it happened months before Carlos came to Night Vale.

Second is a calendar. The month is spelled out in runes of some sort that Carlos can't read, despite Cecil's best tutoring; he guesses at the truth because of the picture, a very serious bear wearing a small red and white hat. December, then. December of what year he can't be sure, only that it's 2011 or before.

Carlos rolls over to his side, carefully. Cecil's bed really isn't that big, and two people can only share if they're willing to be very friendly. Cecil's eyes are already fluttering open, and he blinks up at Carlos.

Carlos smiles at him, leans down, and kisses him.

It's not smooth and romantic, the way it was in his head. He's never managed smooth and romantic in his life, despite Cecil's claims to the contrary. But Cecil's startled noise against Carlos's lips gentles into a pleased hum, and he leans up into the kiss.

One kiss turns into several. Somehow Carlos didn't expect it to be this easy, but then he's not sure what he expected at all. He's missed his boyfriend, and even if this isn't exactly his boyfriend, it's so terribly, achingly close that he can't seem to stop.

 _I give you permission to kiss me whenever you'd like_ , Cecil says in his memory.

This Cecil makes a startled, inarticulate noise as Carlos attacks his nightshirt, but he doesn't protest. Instead, he wriggles helpfully and sits up, allowing Carlos to strip it off entirely. Carlos tosses the nightshirt off toward the end of the bed, and suddenly finds his own shirt halfway up his body, his face hidden behind cloth that's tangled on his arms. "You're overdressed," Cecil tells him.

Carlos's equally startled grin is hidden behind fabric, but he tugs his t-shirt the rest of the way off without protest, and kisses Cecil again.

Cecil seems to know what he wants, even if Carlos doesn't really. Kissing turns quickly into kissing and groping, while Cecil murmurs appreciative comments now and again. Carlos isn't anything like that coherent, and anyway everything he can think to say would sound terrible from a stranger. He doesn't even have the same voice he did when he arrived in Night Vale.

Somehow it's that thought that propels him to his knees, moving between Cecil's thighs. Cecil allows it with a confused murmur that turns into a delighted mewl when Carlos takes his first careful lick. 

It takes even less time than Carlos remembers - Cecil's always been so beautifully responsive to Carlos's experiments, but this Cecil hasn't had the chance to get used to being touched. Carlos sits up, intending to jerk himself off instead of demanding Cecil do anything, only to find Cecil's hands there first. Cecil doesn't have Carlos's knowledge, but it's been a very long time for Carlos as well (phone-calls notwithstanding), and it's Cecil touching him. He comes all over Cecil's hands and stomach.

They lie there next to each other for a long time. Cecil keeps laughing - not _at_ anything, just laughing - which sets off Carlos, which sets off Cecil. When they finally calm down, Cecil murmurs, "Merry Christmas indeed."

"Merry Christmas," Carlos murmurs back, and leans down to kiss Cecil again. December 25th, apparently. He still isn't sure what year.

"Can I know your name?" Cecil asks wistfully, no louder than a whisper. 

The Secret Police. Right. Not _may I_ , but _**can** I_. The answer should probably be 'no,' for lots of reasons that aren't just the sanctity of the timeline or Night Vale's laws. But instead he whispers his name into Cecil's ear, soft and gravelly and a lot like the voice he used to have, before he changed his vocal cords.

Just in time, because he blinks, and between closing his eyes and opening them again, the world goes prickly and red and he's back in the Desert Otherworld once more. Dammit.

*

A text to Cecil - Carlos didn't dare call, not with his voice still hoarse from taking Cecil's cock. They'd talked about it, but Carlos still felt awkward.

A text to Jane Smith, the scientists' official contact on the Secret Police. They might or might not have kept any video or still photos of his visit to Cecil, but he'd promised to try.

Finally, and most importantly, he sat down with Alesha and their astronomer friend. They had three data points now, enough to do some real science. On all three nights, Alesha had seen the constellation of the Traveller, and next to him, the constellation of the Changeable. The third constellation - the one closest to the horizon, the one that moved the most, the one that always vanished right before Carlos reappeared in the Desert Otherworld - was of Khonsu, the Night Watchman, the Moon's Child.

"So Khonsu is the key," Carlos said, frowning over the star-maps spread out under his feet.

"Or Khonsu's parent is the key," Alesha suggested. They shrugged when Carlos looked up at them. "The moon still rises over Night Vale, does it not? Doug saw it when they passed through, last year. Khonsu is only a watchman, after all: he gives alarm to his parent when he sees something. When you appear in Night Vale, tell the moon you are there."

Nobody really liked the moon in Night Vale, in Carlos's experience. They made fun of it, and told dirty jokes to it, and pouted at it when they thought it was ignoring them, but they didn't really _like_ it. On the other hand...lots of things that people didn't like, had power in Night Vale. 

*

He doesn't let himself hesitate this time when he opens his eyes. Calendar time doesn't matter. He'll figure something out. He'll put on a tan jacket and pretend if he has to. He throws open the curtains and glares up at the full moon.

Something in the back of his head, a rumbling he hasn't even realized was there subsides into silence. He still feels uncomfortably sandy and prickly, but Night Vale's in a desert too. He can hear the familiar rustling outside the window as the Secret Police tries to make themselves comfortable for a night's surveillance, and a far-off barking that suddenly turns into yelps of panic hidden in bursts of angry static. The air smells of linen and old meat, and the homemade incense that Cecil's neighbor across the hall insists on burning out on the fire escape.

He's back in Night Vale. He's not going to be yanked back. It's _real_.

His phone, which is apparently in the pocket of his lab coat (once more hung over the bedroom door), buzzes with a newly arrived email. Carlos goes to retrieve it, but stops with his hand in his pocket when the bed creaks behind him.

"Carlos?"

Carlos tugs his phone free, turns around. "Hello, Cecil."

Cecil's propped up on his elbows, staring at him - well, like Cecil's always stared at him, every time now that Carlos has appeared here: as if Carlos is the gift of dark and ancient gods who might be snatched away at any moment. Carlos comes over and kneels down next to the bed, next to Cecil. "I, um. Did manage to get those photos you requested."

Cecil takes Carlos's phone and nearly drops it on the floor, then changes his mind at the last minute and instead puts it carefully on the night stand. "I will look at those _later_ ," he says firmly. "And demand a re-creation. First, come here."

Carlos allows himself to be hauled up onto the bed. He wraps his arms around Cecil, hugging him back, first carefully, then tightly.

He'll miss Doug, and Alesha. He'll miss the experiments he didn't get to finish, and the questions he didn't get to answer. But he's with Cecil again. He's _home_ , in this town that still doesn't make sense, but that maybe wants him back too. It's enough.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this months ago. I've tried to tweak it to keep it as canon as I could: the remaining failures are mine and not the fault of my beta-reader. At a certain point, you just gotta say hell with it, and bring Carlos back regardless, before you get even more jossed.


End file.
